By the way, Denberg, are you in this year?  Thinking about it?

- Do I need to register intent anywhere?

You just did...

- Do most racers get a Colorado Outdoor Recreation Search and Rescue card?

I always carry one in the backcountry.  Not necessary, but as Aaron said, cheap and not a bad idea.

- Any recommendations on somewhere cheap/decent to stay in Durango for a few days before the race starts?

Depending on your standards, it's more like pick one:  Cheap OR decent.    Junction Creek campground is both, but you might want things like hot showers and proximity to restaurants before heading out for 550 miles of camping and trail food.  The places here most frequented by bikepackers are the Adobe Inn, Spanish Trails Inn, and Royal Inn - we have larger, newer, nicer chain hotels too, but more expensive.  The Rochester or Strater hotels downtown are excellent, but not cheap.  Unfortunately, our one hostel closed down a while back...

Welcome to the board and we'll see you in July!

Yep, CTR from sea level can be a PITA - but you already knew that.  If you can come out 6 weeks ahead of time, great.  If not, 3-4 weeks.  Barring that, just show up day of, because your body will just get more run down trying to acclimate in a 1-2 week span, leaving you in worse shape for the race.

Lots of HAB.  Prepare to walk ~100 miles, maybe more if you can't breathe...

Best of luck planning and training!

I thought I remembered seeing a missed call from you!  Sort of spaced it while dealing with the tooth.  Believe it or not, getting this wisdom tooth yanked had some small bit of reasoning attached to the CTR (and bikepacking in general)... difficult to go out in the backcountry for days at a time if you never know when something's gonna flare up.

Hope you found something good up here.  Will be glad to have you back in town!

You should definitely do the CTR.  Well, maybe.  Do the AZT300 first.  Then multiply that by about 2-3x (longer, higher, techy-er, walky-er), then decide.  I'm all for you going for it, of course...

Airflow is the name of this game.  High-powered lights are built under the assumption that you're moving, and the airflow you create will cool them down.  They will get warm, maybe even very warm, but I've never had any of my light systems over the last 20 years get too hot to hold.  Were you moving for the time the light was on?

It is possible that the "Urban" series was designed with higher speeds (road, commuting) in mind, and thus uses less radiant cooling tech (fins).  But that's just supposition on my part.

I'm accustomed to the idea that I ride in bear and lion territory.  But I HATE snakes.  This led to a bit of irrational fear on the runup to the AZTR a couple years back.  Essentially, I had the fear of getting bitten by a rattler out there (a friend of mine was struck on the shoe while on the AZT in a previous year's race), but I decided I wasn't going to let it stop me from doing something awesome that I would remember forever.  This goes for any type of fear: fear of animals, fear of failure, fear of unpreparedness, fear of whatever.

For me, anyway, it all goes away the instant we're rolling.  I could be a total nervous nutjob 5 minutes prior to start, but once the gun goes off it's smooth sailing.

For the record, I saw precisely zero rattlesnakes while on the AZT.

All right, two definite victims, I mean participants! 

Have ridden most of 18 on the bike route, before the detour.  Not a technical section at all, very fast, some doubletrack.  Never been on 19, but judging from the topography at the beginning I would expect not very technical.  Your guess is as good as mine the deeper you go, though...

Thanks for the replies.  I'm not old-fashioned!    Okay, maybe a little.  Forum posts make more sense to me than hashtags and emoji conversations.

I'll stick with this site, I've never been into Facebook.  Maybe as summer comes on things will get a little busier.

Plus, there are people on here I've known for years, but only through this site!

Last year we had way less snow than this year, so I'd expect an Animas Forks photo taken on 06/29/17 to look a fair bit different, especially in the upper reaches.  Also, Imogene is about 2000' higher than Animas Forks (!).  Could be totally good to go, but I wouldn't bet on it (yet). 

The CO section of the San Juans will be touch and go to see if it'll be rideable or will be a long snow march. What do you think, Joey?

Justin, that's a great point.  Hadn't thought about that yet.  There is serious potential for unpassable snow in the San Juans depending on rider pace.  If record pace is expected to be ~30 days, they will likely hit the greater San Juan area by day 20.  June 20th, there will be feet of snow on Engineer Pass and Imogene Pass.  We've had a big snow year this year, and even in relatively dry years there's much snow on Imogene at that time of year.  I've ridden Imogene in July (after it was plowed) with 12-foot walls of snow on either side.

I would guess that IF we have a dry, warm spring (unlike the last two years), those two passes won't be largely melted out until July 1 at least, perhaps more like July 15!

HAB is fine, and "unpassable" sometimes just means "harder to get over", but there is a point where it becomes dangerous or silly to attempt...

Hello everyone.  As a long-time member of the community here I've got a question for all.

I have been pretty absent around here as of late, so I am not casting stones.  BUT - coming back to the forum, I can't help but notice the lack of activity and chatter.  Based on my business and on the internet at large, it appears that bikepacking certainly hasn't decreased in popularity over the last couple years.  Sooo... where's everyone hanging out?  I'm not aware of any forum that is providing the same sort of broad public community support that this site does.  I am aware that there are WAY more bikepacking-centric sites out there than even a year or two ago (some of them excellent) - but none that I know of have a forum, a place for community Q-and-A, opinions, real-world experiences, etc.

What gives?  There are forums for everything, and I can't imagine that there just aren't enough bikepackers in the world to support a thriving online community.  I know, I know, "go outside, get off the internet", but that's not a helpful answer.  There's no shortage of Instagram posts tagged #bikepacking, so it ain't that bikepackers are just too crunchy to spend time online.

Scott, have you wondered about this?

Love the pics, though one of them gives me nightmares!  

I know, marmots ARE scary...

...but am doubtful the trail will be even close to snow free by then.

Yeah.  We've had some insane snow this year, huh?  In 2011, there was less snow over the winter, and on July 4th, there were still 25'-high snow drifts on the Crest.  Had to do some HAB up, bike-as-snow-anchor mountaineering descents on the steep, leeward side...

...is that pre-tank seven creek or post-tank seven creek?

If memory serves - and it may well not, given my frame of mind at the time of the photo - it was post-Tank Seven creek, on the way up to Windy Peak.  Got around Windy, past Silver Creek, and more or less collapsed somewhere before Marshall Pass.  Woke up a few hours later to this, and lo, it was good:

I am one of the Bedrock guys.  Andrew, my business partner, is the one who knows Hap in NC!

This is something I've wanted to see happen for a LONG time.  As in, longer than a decade.  Before knowing of the Tour Divide or of the TransAm moto route, I thought it would be amazing to piece together a mostly-dirt route across the States.  When I heard Rice was planning this it made me so stoked!

On board just to enjoy the conversation!

RE: getting behind the saddle on techy descents, I've never had much trouble personally.  But I'm tall, so that helps.  Often you can, as mentioned above, orient the bag more vertically or horizontally - horizontally is easier to get over, but vertically is more stable.

If you run a dropper, there are a couple true dropper-post designed bags out there now.  Scott at Porcelain Rocket makes one, and so do we at Bedrock.  Very different takes on design, but you can look that up on your own.

Also, not trying to push our gear here, really - but it isn't as simple as "laced to the rails type" or "bag in a harness type" seat bags.  For example, both of Bedrock's seat bag models don't use a harness, but don't lace through the rails either.  They detach and reattach to the bike at camp extremely quickly and easily.  Once again, you can look into this at will.

Hope that helps. 

The honest truth?  It's a ripoff of Scott Felter's (Porcelain Rocket) Mr Fusion. 

The semi-rack idea is something we at Bedrock tested years ago (before the Mr Fusion, 2011-12) but never brought to market because we weren't okay with the extra complexity, fragility in a crash, and potential for failure.  We ended up with our own unique system.

But, if you're going to go for a semi-rack-based seat bag, personally I would recommend you go with the Porcelain Rocket, instead of a Chinese-made, low-quality imitation.  Support originality, innovation, and quality cottage manufacturing!

'Bout time we got this started.  I've been absent from the site for a good bit, nailing down other parts of my life.  But hey, spring is incoming and the Black Cat and I are looking forward to summer!  Not yet certain of my 2017 CTR ambitions - I have an employee at the shop that wants to do it (go Zach!) - but if I'm feeling good I may just go out there and do it too, for the third time.

So, who's in?  Who's CTR-curious?  And who's starting in our fair burgh of Durango, and who's bucking the grand depart and starting from the big city?

A few of my photos from the 2013 CTR are attached for inspiration!   

A couple weeks here in Durango can be a long time to park anywhere.  You *could* park in the residential areas downtown and be fine... or, some cranky resident could call code enforcement on day 5 and have your car tagged, and a few days later, towed.  All TH areas are bad ideas for that long.  Were I you, I'd just scope out an empty section of residential street and go for it.  Sorry, I don't have off-street parking, or I'd offer you a spot. 

I have destroyed multiple cameras by strapping them to the bike and riding off road for thousands of miles.  No more!  These days I use a Canon G7X, which gives me quite good photos in a small size - point and shoot size, full manual controls, 1" sensor.  The tradeoff is no swappable lenses.  Made a tiny hip pack/fanny pack to carry it - easy to access, and the body is a pretty dang good suspension device, preventing damage.  I don't wear a backpack and hate carrying stuff on my person, but this little hip pack disappears.  (Note: this little bag was a product we sold in our monthly limited edition series and is not currently available.)